Well here is the first of the blog - life, after the child leaves home.

It starts quite devastatingly enough. Son moves overseas for a long, long time. He’s on his way to Yale, although my mother still thinks he’s going to jail. Anyway, the relationship as I’ve known it, is over. We’re now, ‘just friends’. I had accepted that I would no longer do the school run. I was secretly relieved that I didn’t have to sit in freezing conditions at the ice rink watching him train for ice hockey or pace the swimming pool while he did lap after lap a zillion times a week. (I once proudly bragged that I suffered repetitive strain injury). When he left high school and started university I quickly realised that he could successfully catch public transport without me getting THAT call. When he moved out of home because, apparently, young people need to experience life, do their own thing, I was more than just offended. Imagine the horror. And don’t get me started on the clean house. I hated it. For a while there, I started throwing my clothes around the place, deliberately leaving half-filled coffee cups on every table and bench and placing all the used plates a good three hour jog away from the sink just to feel like he was still here, still home. But after days of filling the bath with tears, the reality of the mess and the state of my constant red eyes, niggled at me.Even better, opportunity arose. That empty built-in robe in his old room was suddenly a second home for the stuff in the over-crowded one in my bedroom. Did I mention I’m a collector, of dresses?I actually started to enjoy the weekly dinners or lunches he organised. We’d catch up and go for a skate, sometimes a surf. We discussed things. I didn’t nag. You have no idea how fabulous it is to lose that rather, um, annoying personality trait. Yet it’s one thing for them to grow up and move out of home. To move to the other side of the world is another matter. I’m in mourning all over again.When he told me he was applying to the US to study, I was pleased and I hoped he would do well while the entire time my heart was punching my throat and I had to remind myself to breathe. The thoughts that followed over the next few months were almost evil. On acceptance, I was the most painful soccer mum that ever existed. I bragged to anybody who would listen while going home to share the night with a box of tissues.Despite being the proudest parent on earth next to Kate Middleton’s, I wanted those apron strings extended. As the time for him to leave grew near, I was almost institutionalised. I couldn’t stop crying and my habit blew out to several boxes of tissues a day. I kept seeing him walking down the street, even though, on proper viewing, it was actually just my 85-year-old neighbor. Sorry, son, I know you don’t look that old or dress that badly but the mind has its way.He keeps pestering me though. “Mum, help, I lost my cash, my travel money card is missing, my phone doesn’t work and my immunisation records have absconded.” I’m now hiding in a cupboard, my phone firmly planted somewhere at the bottom of the garden and the computer, er we won’t go there but the last time I had a cup of coffee it cost me $980. Anyway, suffice to say, I’ve had to avoid communication for several days just to protect my own sanity.Here’s the thing, I wouldn’t change it for all the dresses and clean houses in the world (okay, I’m lying about the dresses). The grieving makes you appreciate how good the relationship with your children actually is. You can see how successful you have been as a parent. Sure, people will query your constant red cheeks and you’ll be denying you’re an alcoholic, but hey, that’s when the fun begins.

Well, I’m back. After 18 months of pretending to be an artist, and some kind of celebrity, the draft of the next book (working title is The Sisters), is done and the editing has commenced. After suffering chronic literary fatigue for the past two years, I picked up a few new tricks but one can only live easily for so long before the literary whip lures the masochistic writer back for more lashings. I hadn’t realised how much I missed it. Sure, I dabbled. I fiddled with some short stories and poems and wrote a hell of a lot of posts on Facebook (well over 1,000), but nothing is quite as satisfying as raking through 80,000 plus words of muck and seeing something that resembles a ‘book’ emerge from the cesspit. And it was a cesspit. Still is. Oh, and my diet tip for 2013 is to try the cocktail replacement program. I lost 8 kilograms so it clearly works. Anyway, got to get to the AA meeting. Ciao.

It's been a while. I’ve been slack when I’ve really had plenty to discuss. I’ve been busy creating. Not a masterpiece but terminology. Literary fatigue. It’s horrid. NASTY! It’s when every word you read sounds the same. And it’s not exclusive to your own work. It’s when anything more than a sentence suddenly starts sounding similar to what you’ve just read. Inevitably, you fall asleep. I’m on iron tablets now, and I’m not falling asleep, but those words look like dots to me. So open up the Firefox browser, enter most recent sites. Ah, Facebook, you make so much sense right now. I dare not complain about FB. It’s provided me with friends, book sales, media interviews as well as reconnecting me with people I knew long ago. And I’m still writing, right? To be honest, many of the posts get me thinking and give me ideas and I’m wondering if these ideas may lead to creating characters in future manuscripts. For now I guess, I better finish off what I’ve started...well, maybe after a bout of vacuum cleaning and I really need to sort through those books meandering around the dining room table and then there's the....

Sod new year resolutions and the like, you know, the ones where you say you'll write x amount of words each day, week, month. Forget it. Something far more sinister and urgent has arisen. I had no idea of it happening until I accidentally came across a lost graveyard. I've been hoarding, not dead bodies, but dead ideas, similes, characters, scenes. Actually, they're not quite dead, more like the living dead. Ghosts perhaps. But I realise I now need to find a place for the tombs of my babies or resuscitate them. The ones that were thought to have been killed off during the editing cyclone of 2008/09/10. Tragic circumstances yet obviously I believed in reincarnation as there was never any burial or scattering of the ashes. I have to do something with them. But what? There's a collection forming on my laptop, my desk, hiding in cabinets. Now and then I give them a poke, see if I can detect a heartbeat, a breath, but so far, they all remain on life support. Anyone with inspiring stories of reincarnation to share?

You hear it all the time. How so many writers are terrible in public and how they seem to loathe reading or being interviewed. Apparently their nature is to write, not to perform and maybe we should feel sorry for them. Bah! All writers are nervous at the idea of public appearances but I think most get through the task unscathed and probably ‘perform’ brilliantly.The weeks before my own launch I was a mess. It was an era of nail-removing, heart-attack invoking and sleep-deprived days and nights I'll never forget. I attracted shingles, swollen glands and nausea. (At least it gave me something else to think about). Anxiety attacks slapped me so often I was seriously bruised. I thought nobody would turn up then they would and there would be no books left and so it went on. I had no intention of reading from the book and when asked to prepare a ten minute ‘performance’, well, the frail membrane holding me together fully collapsed.But on the night, something changed. I didn’t want to let people down. They were there for me. I chose a few scenes from the book, deciphering over whether to use the one swear word, the first word I might add, which I did (hey, at least people will remember it).One glass of wine and a microphone and I can make any prime minister look like a rookie!Well, maybe not, but it went okay. My voice didn’t shake. I just told myself, ‘hey, it’s published, it can’t be THAT BAD.’ I also remember a friend of mine who was an actor saying how she almost vomited before each performance but as soon as she was on the stage, the urge vanished.The idea of promotion is daunting, but life is about challenges. And writing is about new experiences as much as it is about old ones. I think it’s worthwhile remembering too, that readers do desire to engage with writers. I won’t deliver a diet tip, but rather a request. Because when the first photos emerge from your launch, after all those years of tapping away at a keyboard, you do fill out a tad. It may not be much, but the ironboard abs look more like the pile of washing sitting on top. So, can someone out there, please invent some way to work on the laptop while exercising. PLEASE!

I’m obsessed. Every sentence I read, I don’t dwell on the beauty of the language or lack of. No. I analyse whether it needed a hyphen or not. And I’m finding, with everything I read, there’s no real pure way to use it. He drank the half-filled drink. Some would leave out the hyphen. I noticed in one of Winton's book the hyphen in a similar sentence was missing. I throw them out if I need more than one to string a few words together. So-that-it-doesn’t-read-like-this.Argh! Will I ever be able to return to the concept of just enjoying a read?Back to diets. I'm starting to resemble Santa (okay, slight exaggeration but still)! I have no advice on how to keep it real other than to boycott family gatherings or have your jaw wired shut. Ah, the joy of willpower. Now, should that be hyphenated?

Not so long ago, I was involved in a discussion about literary awards and whether Australian writers are better off for receiving $100,000 awards. Isn’t the award itself enough? Or at the very least, should the prize money really be that high? Another question raised was, wouldn’t it be better to put most of the money into awarding a publisher (maybe that should be rewarding) so that more books can be developed and published or at least, the ones that do make it to print are of the highest possible quality? I wasn't sure I agreed with this, but on contemplation, it's probably not a bad idea. I believe writers or books of merit should receive awards but I do also agree that maybe more needs to be done to recognise publishers. There are those taking risks, publishing poetry and emerging writers or even writers with an unusual concept and many of these publishers are independents. My own included. Publishing requires a huge investment in both money and time. They receive truckloads of manuscripts every year and with the reliance on external manuscript assessments, the competition is getting fiercer, the standards even higher (or at least, that's what you'd expect). I’m not a fan of self-publishing so the traditional route remains the best option, especially for the emerging. It shows someone has faith in your work. But one of the big struggles, particularly for the independents and smaller houses, is that they don’t have the funds to inject into the book that a bigger company may have. Distribution costs money, having your book up front in a shop costs money and the long haul of editing isn’t cheap. Remember, it’s the publishers who are being asked to take the risks so perhaps awards that recognise both publisher and writer might be a fairer system. Just a thought. As a writer, to make a living from it, you have to sometimes think outside the square, as I have done since I was in my 20s. I never wrote my book expecting to retire on the royalties but on seeing it published, I see the value of it as a marketing tool. It adds another skill to those I already have. And the next book? Well, I can only tell you this: there won’t be any diet tips. Promise.

Well, the launch is nigh. Just a few days away. The book is available as of tomorrow. It’s an exciting, nerve wrecking, nail biting, wine swilling time (excuse lack of hyphens, I suffer an allergy). I’m still dreaming about typos, structural errors, missing words (if you read it, please, please, don’t tell me if you find any) and there’s the idea of being criticised (delete expletive here).Oh why can’t I just do one more draft. Just one. While I’m on the subject of drafts, why can’t life be a draft? Given the chance to revise, I’d do a damn good editing job. I've had a lot of time to consider the final copy.Enough complaining!Now, what to read at the launch? The challenge is to find a page where there is no swearing, no amorous scene, no criminal activity and importantly, no dialogue. I’ve just found two paragraphs. Hang on, found another. That’s it. Maybe if I read from another book nobody will notice.And what to wear? Something slimming. Black. And some dark shades.But on the positive, I’m going to catch up with people I haven’t seen in decades and I’m really excited. It’s going to be awesome.Diet tip: write a book and have a launch, you’ll be so nervous you won’t eat for ages. Trust me. This one works.

“He was backing away, holding out both stiff trembling hands like a man intently describing the length of a short fish.”Guess which modern classic this simile is taken from? Hint: the book was made into a film in recent years starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet. Revolutionary Road is a pretty good novel but this simile made me laugh, out loud. I mean, I get the image and what he meant by it, but it’s a tad awkward.Of late, whenever I come across a simile, I find a lot of them are clumsy rather than clever (and I know I’m guilty of a few misses - that dodgy headline simile belongs to moi and yes, I was being deliberately bad). But perhaps it also depends on the narrative. I rarely use similes in third person because they just seem forced or at best, odd. And there’s the old rule of not using clichés but again, I think if you’re writing in first person, they can be the character’s personality trait.Another author (Australian) wrote this, “She gave him a look to curdle milk.” This was from a novel written in third person that had a number of sloppy things throughout it, although the writer is a renowned author. I wondered if the real issue here is lack of time and perhaps limited resources in editing (these days, there are only so many times a novel can be edited and proofread). But that’s another story.I think we can get away with one or two clichés in first person narrative but in third person, probably best to hit the delete button.Diet tip, hmm, hard one. I know, it’s hot, so if in need of a treat, buy an ice cream and enjoy it outside. Most of it will melt away before it makes your mouth...